Case Number 05790

IKE: COUNTDOWN TO D-DAY

The Charge

The fate of millions rests upon the fortitude of one.

Opening Statement

"Could Normandy happen today? No -- that's our culture and we have to
accept it. Today's press would be saying, 'Why are Churchill and Roosevelt and
Eisenhower lying to us? We know there's no army where you say it is -- and the
American public has a right to know.' They would have been saying, 'You can't
send Sherman tanks into France.' Thousands of things. Plus it was 1944 -- an
election year. It would have been a very hard thing to accomplish without making
judgments that were political. It was a different time." -- Tom Selleck

Facts of the Case

December, 1943: With the world consumed by the flames of war, and with Nazi
tyranny dominating Europe, one man takes control of the largest military force
history has ever seen, a force specifically built to smash into Fortress Europe.
But Dwight D. Eisenhower (Tom Selleck, Quigley Down Under) has to contend
with more than military strategy and logistics: He also has to build strategy
for dealing with a wide assortment of colorful personalities, including Winston
Churchill (Ian Mune, The Last of the Ryans), Gen. George Patton (Gerald
McRaney, Major Dad), and British Gen. Sir Bernard Montgomery (Bruce
Philips, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King).

The Evidence

Tom Selleck looks absolutely nothing like Dwight D. Eisenhower, to begin
with. He has shaved off that Magnum, P.I. moustache, even shaved his head
-- and he still looks nothing like Ike. This must be distinctly understood, or
nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.

I have never been quite so impressed by Selleck's acting ability as I was in
this movie. He made me believe -- despite the physical dissimilarities and
despite my deeply ingrained memories of him in Hawaiian shirts and driving a
Ferrari. Ike was an Everyman sort of soldier, and Selleck hangs his performance
on that fact. He gives us a straightforward, personable, capable, chain-smoking
Ike, and director Robert Harmon (Gotti) gives Selleck all the room he
needs to show Ike's organizing and planning abilities, native intelligence and
people skills, and frustration at the size and importance of the task set before
him. Rather than dazzling us with makeup and special effects, this TV movie has
the rather quaint notion of drawing us in with acting ability and directorial
skill, and Ike: Countdown to D-Day more than delivers. Ike's battles are
fought in meetings and at conference tables; that is where the film stays,
lending a sort of stage play quality to the movie, leaving the more dynamic
battle scenes to movies like Saving Private Ryan and Band of
Brothers. Consider this movie the prologue to those excellent films; knowing
how much struggle went into the planning of D-Day can only give you a deeper
appreciation of how well it actually came off when executed.

This film is outstanding -- absolutely on the highest end of the TV-movie
spectrum. The production values are as good as any theatrical release, with
beautiful, even haunting cinematography and excellent costuming and set design
that completely bring you into wartime 1940s. This is a war movie for people who
don't like war movies: Instead of being bombastic, it is quiet and thoughtful;
instead of being fast-paced with quick cuts and shaky camera work, it is steady
and methodical; instead of focusing on the blood and horror and intensity of
war, it focuses on the tedious and frustrating behind-the-scenes work that makes
the big battles possible. Can it be possible to make a powerful, compelling, and
engrossing war movie without a gajillion dollars and 300 digital effects shots
and overwrought, overpaid one-note actors spouting clichés while explosions
thunder?

Squarely at the movie's heart is Selleck's interpretation of Ike. Rather
than attempting to mimic Eisenhower (which would have looked absurd), Selleck
chooses instead to portray the sort of personality Ike was. And so we are shown
a man who is friendly, even avuncular (but also stern and uncompromising when
need be), who shuns the press and insists that even Roosevelt and Churchill
accept his lead as supreme commander (insisting also that, should D-Day fail, he
and he alone should bear responsibility for it: "I'm expendable," he
says in conference with Churchill, "you are not"), and who never loses
his compassion for the men that he is sending to their deaths in the cause of
freedom.

Part of the reason that this movie works so well is that it stays quite
narrowly focused on its premise: It is indeed a countdown to D-Day, and
screenwriter Lionel Chetwynd (The Man Who Captured Eichmann) doesn't
stray from that focus. This is not a comprehensive portrait of Eisenhower so
much as it is a portrait of Eisenhower in his most daunting moments, a study of
a rather common and unassuming man who is given the key to the most powerful
military force in history, with the fate of the world literally hanging in the
balance. The movie builds a great deal of suspense, despite the inevitability of
historical fact: In some ways, you get the idea that breaking the Nazi grip on
Europe was the least of Ike's troubles. We watch him manage the egos of
not only his subordinate generals, but of his larger-than-life superiors as well
-- not to mention the parade of supply problems, rivalries between our own
branches of service and between the dozen or so nations allied with us,
conflicting and questionable intelligence reports, uncertainties about the
weather, and a thousand other details that could spell victory or defeat for the
looming invasion.

The supporting cast is good, displaying real acting talent within the
framework of this tight, no-frills screenplay. Ian Mune is particularly
delightful as Churchill -- what a role for an actor of Mune's ability! Timothy
Bottoms (That's My Bush!) and James Remar (The Girl Next Door) are
unremarkable but adequate in their respective roles as Gens. Omar Bradley and
Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith; they are there as Ike subordinates, and
they do little to draw attention away from the central character of the film.
Fortunately, Bruce Philips offers terse conflict with Ike as Field Marshall
Montgomery, and George Shevtsov (Let's Get Skase) is excellent in his
brief scene as the arrogant and problematic Charles DeGaulle. This disc is also
a boon for the DVD collector: The commentary with Selleck, Harmon, and Chetwynd
is as informative as it is enthusiastic, with such a lack of pretense and such
obvious adoration for the project that I enjoyed it as much as I did the
feature. An interesting feature is also included: "Ike: The Filmmakers
Reflect," which delves into the history of the project and the experiences
that the three had while making the movie -- Tom Selleck, guy's guy, is terribly
charming here, laughing at himself for getting dizzy and a bit sick after
mimicking Ike's smoking habit, and noting wryly, "I'm not sure I would have
cast myself as Ike." No expense is spared in this release, from the
beautiful picture quality and anamorphic widescreen presentation to the 5.1
digital surround sound. Very nice.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

Okay, I know that the name of the movie is "Ike: Countdown to
D-Day" and not "A Concise History of the Planning of D-Day." I
realize that certain dramatic license must and will be taken. Having said that,
I feel that there are a couple of minor sour notes struck by the production that
must be addressed.

First of all, the portrayal of George S. Patton. Now, Patton was an odd sort
of fellow, to say the least. Depending on your point of view, you could probably
even make a case that he was a few bullets shy of a full clip. But he was
absolutely not a buffoon, and this is how he appears in Ike. Whimpering,
buffoonish, fumbling -- none of these qualities accurately embody Patton, who
was one of the strongest personalities to emerge in World War II. This movie has
him literally burst into tears at the prospect of being sent home before the
invasion. To be sure, being sent home in disgrace (for some thoughtless and
highly inflammatory remarks regarding the fate of the postwar world) without
being allowed to participate in the largest invasion in history would have been
devastating to the general -- but bursting into tears? I think not. This
portrayal does nothing to honor Ike and is an insult to the memory of one of the
most brilliant and colorful military leaders of the 20th century. Thankfully,
Patton's scene amounts to little more than a mercifully brief cameo.

Also, an important historical aspect of D-Day is overlooked: Operation
Neptune, which was the massive naval operation that made the invasion possible,
receives no mention despite the fact that it was as much of a headache for SHAEF
as Overlord (the ground invasion -- think Saving Private Ryan). This
seems like a glaring omission, especially in light of the attention to detail
that this production otherwise shows.

Also conspicuous by its absence is the A&E Biography episode on
Eisenhower. Given the narrow focus of this film, to include that biography as a
extra would seem to be a no-brainer. What gives, guys?

Closing Statement

I guess it took a Canadian to come up with a screenplay like this: There are
attitudes and perspectives here that too few Americans embrace these days. A
modern viewer cannot help but reflect on the difference between Ike's time and
ours -- can you imagine the savage beating a general today would get in the
press if he refused to tell them anything? Can you imagine the reception
that a D-Day-style invasion would get from the media -- and the public -- today,
especially cloaked in such secrecy? Remember, these generals and world leaders
were expecting colossal losses in this invasion, and they made the
difficult decision to expend as many lives as necessary to defend world freedom
and smash an axis of evil. But these were men who were thinking of the course of
human events, the future of the free world, and the right of all people around
the world to live without the shadow of terror and brutality looming over their
heads -- not the next election or their standing in the polls. Ike: Countdown
to D-Day brings home the weight of the decisions that had to be made, and
the willingness of the men of integrity and conviction from the highest levels
of government to the lowest privates in the army to make those decisions and do
the job that needed to be done.

But above all, the movie sets out to show the enormous scope of Ike's task
in setting up the elements that would combine to bring about the destruction of
Nazi tyranny, and it succeeds on that level, also managing to be engrossing,
well acted, and tightly directed. Bravo!